The official notice of the commutation of the sentence was not publisheduntil the day set for the execution, but the certain knowledge that itwould be forthcoming enabled Davis to display a great deal of bravado onapproaching what was supposed to be his end. As the reader can readilyimagine, from what I have heretofore said of him, Davis was the man toimprove to the utmost every opportunity to strut his little hour, and hedid it in this instance. He posed, attitudinized and vapored, so thatthe camp and the country were filled with stories of the wonderfulcoolness with which he contemplated his approaching fate.

Among other things he said to his guard, as he washed himself elaboratelythe night before the day announced for the execution:

"Well, you can be sure of one thing; to-morrow night there will certainlybe one clean corpse on this Island."

Unfortunately for his braggadocio, he let it leak out in some way that hehad been well aware all the time that he would not be executed.

He was taken to Fort Delaware for confinement, and died there some timeafter.

Frank Beverstock went back to his regiment, and served with it until theclose of the war. He then returned home, and, after awhile became abanker at Bowling Green, O. He was a fine business man and became veryprosperous. But though naturally healthy and vigorous, his systemcarried in it the seeds of death, sown there by the hardships ofcaptivity. He had been one of the victims of the Rebels' vaccination;the virus injected into his blood had caused a large part of his righttemple to slough off, and when it healed it left a ghastly cicatrix.

Two years ago he was taken suddenly ill, and died before his friends hadany idea that his condition was serious.

CHAPTER LIV.

SAVANNAH PROVES TO BE A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER--ESCAPE FROM THE BRATS OFGUARDS--COMPARISON BETWEEN WIRZ AND DAVIS--A BRIEF INTERVAL OF GOODRATIONS--WINDER, THE MAN WITH THE EVIL EYE--THE DISLOYAL WORK OF A SHYSTER.

After all Savannah was a wonderful improvement on Andersonville.We got away from the pestilential Swamp and that poisonous ground.Every mouthful of air was not laden with disease germs, nor every cup ofwater polluted with the seeds of death. The earth did not breedgangrene, nor the atmosphere promote fever. As only the more vigoroushad come away, we were freed from the depressing spectacle of every thirdman dying. The keen disappointment prostrated very many who had been ofaverage health, and I imagine, several hundred died, but there werehospital arrangements of some kind, and the sick were taken away fromamong us. Those of us who tunneled out had an opportunity of stretchingour legs, which we had not had for months in the overcrowded Stockade wehad left. The attempts to escape did all engaged in them good, eventhough they failed, since they aroused new ideas and hopes, set the bloodinto more rapid circulation, and toned up the mind and system both.I had come away from Andersonville with considerable scurvy manifestingitself in my gums and feet. Soon these signs almost wholly disappeared.

We also got away from those murderous little brats of Reserves,who guarded us at Andersonville, and shot men down as they would stoneapples out of a tree. Our guards now were mostly, sailors, from theRebel fleet in the harbor--Irishmen, Englishmen and Scandinavians, asfree hearted and kindly as sailors always are. I do not think they everfired a shot at one of us. The only trouble we had was with that portionof the guard drawn from the infantry of the garrison. They had the samerattlesnake venom of the Home Guard crowd wherever we met it, and shot usdown at the least provocation. Fortunately they only formed a small partof the sentinels.

Best of all, we escaped for a while from the upas-like shadow of Winderand Wirz, in whose presence strong men sickened and died, as when nearsome malign genii of an Eastern story. The peasantry of Italy believedfirmly in the evil eye. Did they ever know any such men as Winder andhis satellite, I could comprehend how much foundation they could have forsuch a belief.

Lieutenant Davis had many faults, but there was no comparison between himand the Andersonville commandant. He was a typical young Southern man;ignorant and bumptious as to the most common matters of school-boyknowledge, inordinately vain of himself and his family, coarse in tastesand thoughts, violent in his prejudices, but after all with some streaksof honor and generosity that made the widest possible difference betweenhim and Wirz, who never had any. As one of my chums said to me:

"Wirz is the most even-tempered man I ever knew; he's always foamingmad."

This was nearly the truth. I never saw Wirz when he was not angry;if not violently abusive, he was cynical and sardonic. Never, in mylittle experience with him did I detect a glint of kindly, generoushumanity; if he ever was moved by any sight of suffering its exhibitionin his face escaped my eye. If he ever had even a wish to mitigate thepain or hardship of any man the expression of such wish never fell on myear. How a man could move daily through such misery as he encountered,and never be moved by it except to scorn and mocking is beyond my limitedunderstanding.

Davis vapored a great deal, swearing big round oaths in the broadest ofSouthern patois; he was perpetually threatening to:

"Open on ye wid de ahtillery," but the only death that I knew him todirectly cause or sanction was that I have described in the previouschapter. He would not put himself out of the way to annoy and oppressprisoners, as Wirz would, but frequently showed even a disposition tohumor them in some little thing, when it could be done without danger ortrouble to himself.

By-and-by, however, he got an idea that there was some money to be madeout of the prisoners, and he set his wits to work in this direction.One day, standing at the gate, he gave one of his peculiar yells that heused to attract the attention of the camp with:

"Wh-ah-ye!!"

We all came to "attention," and he announced:

"Yesterday, while I wuz in the camps (a Rebel always says camps,) some ofyou prisoners picked my pockets of seventy-five dollars in greenbacks.Now, I give you notice that I'll not send in any moah rations till themoney's returned to me."

This was a very stupid method of extortion, since no one believed that hehad lost the money, and at all events he had no business to have thegreenbacks, as the Rebel laws imposed severe penalties upon any citizen,and still more upon any soldier dealing with, or having in his possessionany of "the money of the enemy." We did without rations until night,when they were sent in. There was a story that some of the boys in theprison had contributed to make up part of the sum, and Davis took it andwas satisfied. I do not know how true the story was. At another timesome of the boys stole the bridle and halter off an old horse that wasdriven in with a cart. The things were worth, at a liberal estimate,one dollar. Davis cut off the rations of the whole six thousand of usfor one day for this. We always imagined that the proceeds went into hispocket.

A special exchange was arranged between our Navy Department and that ofthe Rebels, by which all seamen and marines among us were exchanged.Lists of these were sent to the different prisons and the men called for.About three-fourths of them were dead, but many soldiers divining, thesituation of affairs, answered to the dead men's names, went away withthe squad and were exchanged. Much of this was through the connivance ofthe Rebel officers, who favored those who had ingratiated themselves withthem. In many instances money was paid to secure this privilege, and Ihave been informed on good authority that Jack Huckleby, of the EighthTennessee, and Ira Beverly, of the One Hundredth Ohio, who kept the bigsutler shop on the North Side at Andersonville, paid Davis five hundreddollars each to be allowed to go with the sailors. As for Andrews andme, we had no friends among the Rebels, nor money to bribe with, so westood no show.

The rations issued to us for some time after our arrival seemed riotousluxury to what we had been getting at Andersonville. Each of us receiveddaily a half-dozen rude and coarse imitations of our fondly-rememberedhard tack, and with these a small piece of meat or a few spoonfuls ofmolasses, and a quart or so of vinegar, and several plugs of tobacco foreach "hundred." How exquisite was the taste of the crackers and molasses!It was the first wheat bread I had eaten since my entry into Richmond--nine months before--and molasses had been a stranger to me for years.After the corn bread we had so long lived upon, this was manna. It seemsthat the Commissary at Savannah labored under the delusion that he mustissue to us the same rations as were served out to the Rebel soldiers andsailors. It was some little time before the fearful mistake came to theknowledge of Winder. I fancy that the news almost threw him into anapoplectic fit. Nothing, save his being ordered to the front, could havecaused him such poignant sorrow as the information that so much good foodhad been worse than wasted in undoing his work by building up the bodiesof his hated enemies.

Without being told, we knew that he had been heard from when the tobacco,vinegar and molasses failed to come in, and the crackers gave way to cornmeal. Still this was a vast improvement on Andersonville, as the mealwas fine and sweet, and we each had a spoonful of salt issued to usregularly.

I am quite sure that I cannot make the reader who has not had anexperience similar to ours comprehend the wonderful importance to us ofthat spoonful of salt. Whether or not the appetite for salt be, as somescientists claim, a purely artificial want, one thing is certain, andthat is, that either the habit of countless generations or some othercause, has so deeply ingrained it into our common nature, that it hascome to be nearly as essential as food itself, and no amount ofdeprivation can accustom us to its absence. Rather, it seemed that thelonger we did without it the more overpowering became our craving.I could get along to-day and to-morrow, perhaps the whole week, withoutsalt in my food, since the lack would be supplied from the excess I hadalready swallowed, but at the end of that time Nature would begin todemand that I renew the supply of saline constituent of my tissues, andshe would become more clamorous with every day that I neglected herbidding, and finally summon Nausea to aid Longing.

The light artillery of the garrison of Savannah--four batteries, twenty-four pieces--was stationed around three sides of the prison, the gunsunlimbered, planted at convenient distance, and trained upon us, readyfor instant use. We could see all the grinning mouths through the cracksin the fence. There were enough of them to send us as high as thetraditional kite flown by Gilderoy. The having at his beck this array offrowning metal lent Lieutenant Davis such an importance in his own eyesthat his demeanor swelled to the grandiose. It became very amusing tosee him puff up and vaunt over it, as he did on every possible occasion.For instance, finding a crowd of several hundred lounging around thegate, he would throw open the wicket, stalk in with the air of a Jovethreatening a rebellious world with the dread thunders of heaven, andshout:

"W-h-a-a y-e-e! Prisoners, I give you jist two minutes to cleah awayfrom this gate, aw I'll open on ye wid de ahtillery!"

One of the buglers of the artillery was a superb musician--evidently someold "regular" whom the Confederacy had seduced into its service, and hisinstrument was so sweet toned that we imagined that it was made ofsilver. The calls he played were nearly the same as we used in thecavalry, and for the first few days we became bitterly homesick everytime he sent ringing out the old familiar signals, that to us were soclosely associated with what now seemed the bright and happy days when wewere in the field with our battalion. If we were only back in thevalleys of Tennessee with what alacrity we would respond to that"assembly;" no Orderly's patience would be worn out in getting laggardsand lazy ones to "fall in for roll-call;" how eagerly we would attend to"stable duty;" how gladly mount our faithful horses and ride away to"water," and what bareback races ride, going and coming. We would beeven glad to hear "guard" and "drill" sounded; and there would be musicin the disconsolate "surgeon's call:"

"Come-get-your-q-n-i-n-i-n-e; come, get your quinine; It'll make you sad: It'll make you sick. Come, come."

O, if we were only back, what admirable soldiers we would be!One morning, about three or four o'clock, we were awakened by the groundshaking and a series of heavy, dull thumps sounding oft seaward.Our silver-voiced bugler seemed to be awakened, too. He set the echoesringing with a vigorously played "reveille;" a minute later came anequally earnest "assembly," and when "boots and saddles" followed, weknew that all was not well in Denmark; the thumping and shaking now hada significance. It meant heavy Yankee guns somewhere near. We heard thegunners hitching up; the bugle signal "forward," the wheels roll off,and for a half hour afterwards we caught the receding sound of the buglecommanding "right turn," "left turn," etc., as the batteries marchedaway. Of course, we became considerably wrought up over the matter,as we fancied that, knowing we were in Savannah, our vessels were tryingto pass up to the City and take it. The thumping and shaking continueduntil late in the afternoon.

We subsequently learned that some of our blockaders, finding time bangingheavy upon their hands, had essayed a little diversion by knocking FortsJackson and Bledsoe--two small forts defending the passage of theSavannah--about their defenders' ears. After capturing the forts ourfolks desisted and came no farther.

Quite a number of the old Raider crowd had come with us fromAndersonville. Among these was the shyster, Peter Bradley. They kept uptheir old tactics of hanging around the gates, and currying favor withthe Rebels in every possible way, in hopes to get paroles outside orother favors. The great mass of the prisoners were so bitter against theRebels as to feel that they would rather die than ask or accept a favorfrom their hands, and they had little else than contempt for thesetrucklers. The raider crowd's favorite theme of conversation with theRebels was the strong discontent of the boys with the manner of theirtreatment by our Government. The assertion that there was any suchwidespread feeling was utterly false. We all had confidence--as wecontinue to have to this day--that our Government would do everything forus possible, consistent with its honor, and the success of militaryoperations, and outside of the little squad of which I speak, not anadmission could be extracted from anybody that blame could be attached toany one, except the Rebels. It was regarded as unmanly and unsoldier-like to the last degree, as well as senseless, to revile our Governmentfor the crimes committed by its foes.

But the Rebels were led to believe that we were ripe for revolt againstour flag, and to side with them. Imagine, if possible, the stupiditythat would mistake our bitter hatred of those who were our deadlyenemies, for any feeling that would lead us to join hands with thoseenemies. One day we were surprised to see the carpenters erect a rudestand in the center of the camp. When it was finished, Bradley appearedupon it, in company with some Rebel officers and guards. We gatheredaround in curiosity, and Bradley began making a speech.

He said that it had now become apparent to all of us that our Governmenthad abandoned us; that it cared little or nothing for us, since it couldhire as many more quite readily, by offering a bounty equal to the paywhich would be due us now; that it cost only a few hundred dollars tobring over a shipload of Irish, "Dutch," and French, who were only tooglad to agree to fight or do anything else to get to this country. [Thepeculiar impudence of this consisted in Bradley himself being aforeigner, and one who had only come out under one of the later calls,and the influence of a big bounty.]

Continuing in this strain he repeated and dwelt upon the old lie, alwaysin the mouths of his crowd, that Secretary Stanton and General Halleckhad positively refused to enter upon negotiations for exchange, becausethose in prison were "only a miserable lot of 'coffee-boilers' and'blackberry pickers,' whom the Army was better off without."

The terms "coffee-boiler," and "blackberry-pickers" were considered theworst terms of opprobrium we had in prison. They were applied to thatclass of stragglers and skulkers, who were only too ready to givethemselves up to the enemy, and who, on coming in, told some gauzy storyabout "just having stopped to boil a cup of coffee," or to do somethingelse which they should not have done, when they were gobbled up. It isnot risking much to affirm the probability of Bradley and most of hiscrowd having belonged to this dishonorable class.

The assertion that either the great Chief-of-Staff or the still greaterWar-Secretary were even capable of applying such epithets to the mass ofprisoners is too preposterous to need refutation, or even denial.No person outside the raider crowd ever gave the silly lie a moment'stoleration.

Bradley concluded his speech in some such language as this:

"And now, fellow prisoners, I propose to you this: that we unite ininforming our Government that unless we are exchanged in thirty days, wewill be forced by self-preservation to join the Confederate army."

For an instant his hearers seemed stunned at the fellow's audacity, andthen there went up such a roar of denunciation and execration that theair trembled. The Rebels thought that the whole camp was going to rushon Bradley and tear him to pieces, and they drew revolvers and leveledmuskets to defend him. The uproar only ceased when Bradley was hurriedout of the prisons but for hours everybody was savage and sullen, andfull of threatenings against him, when opportunity served. We never sawhim afterward.

Angry as I was, I could not help being amused at the tempestuous rage ofa tall, fine-looking and well educated Irish Sergeant of an Illinoisregiment. He poured forth denunciations of the traitor and the Rebels,with the vivid fluency of his Hibernian nature, vowed he'd "give a yearof me life, be J---s, to have the handling of the dirty spalpeen for tenminutes; be G-d," and finally in his rage, tore off his own shirt andthrew it on the ground and trampled on it.

Imagine my astonishment, some time after getting out of prison, to findthe Southern papers publishing as a defense against the charges in regardto Andersonville, the following document, which they claimed to have beenadopted by "a mass meeting of the prisoners:"

"At a mass meeting held September 28th, 1864, by the Federal prisonersconfined at Savannah, Ga., it was unanimously agreed that the followingresolutions be sent to the President of the United States, in the hopethat he might thereby take such steps as in his wisdom he may thinknecessary for our speedy exchange or parole:

"Resolved, That while we would declare our unbounded love for the Union,for the home of our fathers, and for the graves of those we venerate, wewould beg most respectfully that our situation as prisoners be diligentlyinquired into, and every obstacle consistent with the honor and dignityof the Government at once removed.

"Resolved, That while allowing the Confederate authorities all due praisefor the attention paid to prisoners, numbers of our men are dailyconsigned to early graves, in the prime of manhood, far from home andkindred, and this is not caused intentionally by the ConfederateGovernment, but by force of circumstances; the prisoners are forced to gowithout shelter, and, in a great portion of cases, without medicine.

"Resolved, That, whereas, ten thousand of our brave comrades havedescended into an untimely grave within the last six months, and as webelieve their death was caused by the difference of climate, the peculiarkind and insufficiency of food, and lack of proper medical treatment;and, whereas, those difficulties still remain, we would declare as ourfirm belief, that unless we are speedily exchanged, we have noalternative but to share the lamentable fate of our comrades. Must thisthing still go on! Is there no hope?

"Resolved, That, whereas, the cold and inclement season of the year isfast approaching, we hold it to be our duty as soldiers and citizens ofthe United States, to inform our Government that the majority of ourprisoners ate without proper clothing, in some cases being almost naked,and are without blankets to protect us from the scorching sun by day orthe heavy dews by night, and we would most respectfully request theGovernment to make some arrangement whereby we can be supplied withthese, to us, necessary articles.

"Resolved, That, whereas, the term of service of many of our comradeshaving expired, they, having served truly and faithfully for the term oftheir several enlistments, would most respectfully ask their Government,are they to be forgotten? Are past services to be ignored? Not havingseen their wives and little ones for over three years, they would mostrespectfully, but firmly, request the Government to make somearrangements whereby they can be exchanged or paroled.

"Resolved, That, whereas, in the fortune of war, it was our lot to becomeprisoners, we have suffered patiently, and are still willing to suffer,if by so doing we can benefit the country; but we must most respectfullybeg to say, that we are not willing to suffer to further the ends of anyparty or clique to the detriment of our honor, our families, and ourcountry, and we beg that this affair be explained to us, that we maycontinue to hold the Government in that respect which is necessary tomake a good citizen and soldier.

"P. BRADLEY, "Chairman of Committee in behalf of Prisoners."

In regard to the above I will simply say this, that while I cannotpretend to know or even much that went on around me, I do not think itwas possible for a mass meeting of prisoners to have been held withoutmy knowing it, and its essential features. Still less was it possiblefor a mass meeting to have been held which would have adopted any sucha document as the above, or anything else that a Rebel would have foundthe least pleasure in republishing. The whole thing is a brazenfalsehood.

CHAPTER LV.

WHY WE WERE HURRIED OUT OF ANDERSONVILLE--THE OF THE FALL OF ATLANTA--OUR LONGING TO HEAR THE NEWS--ARRIVAL OF SOME FRESH FISH--HOW WE KNEWTHEY WERE WESTERN BOYS--DIFFERENCE IN THE APPEARANCE OF THE SOLDIERS OFTHE TWO ARMIES.

The reason of our being hurried out of Andersonville under the falsepretext of exchange dawned on us before we had been in Savannah long.If the reader will consult the map of Georgia he will understand this,too. Let him remember that several of the railroads which now appearwere not built then. The road upon which Andersonville is situated wasabout one hundred and twenty miles long, reaching from Macon to Americus,Andersonville being about midway between these two. It had noconnections anywhere except at Macon, and it was hundreds of miles acrossthe country from Andersonville to any other road. When Atlanta fell itbrought our folks to within sixty miles of Macon, and any day they wereliable to make a forward movement, which would capture that place, andhave us where we could be retaken with ease.

There was nothing left undone to rouse the apprehensions of the Rebels inthat direction. The humiliating surrender of General Stoneman at Maconin July, showed them what our, folks were thinking of, and awakened theirminds to the disastrous consequences of such a movement when executed bya bolder and abler commander. Two days of one of Kilpatrick's swift,silent marches would carry his hard-riding troopers around Hood's rightflank, and into the streets of Macon, where a half hour's work with thetorch on the bridges across the Ocmulgee and the creeks that enter it atthat point, would have cut all of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee'scommunications. Another day and night of easy marching would bring hisguidons fluttering through the woods about the Stockade at Andersonville,and give him a reinforcement of twelve or fifteen thousand able-bodiedsoldiers, with whom he could have held the whole Valley of theChattahoochie, and become the nether millstone, against which Shermancould have ground Hood's army to powder.

Such a thing was not only possible, but very probable, and doubtlesswould have occurred had we remained in Andersonville another week.

Hence the haste to get us away, and hence the lie about exchange, for,had it not been for this, one-quarter at least of those taken on the carswould have succeeded in getting off and attempted to have reachedSherman's lines.

The removal went on with such rapidity that by the end of September onlyeight thousand two hundred and eighteen remained at Andersonville, andthese were mostly too sick to be moved; two thousand seven hundred diedin September, fifteen hundred and sixty in October, and four hundred andeighty-five in November, so that at the beginning of December there wereonly thirteen hundred and fifty-nine remaining. The larger part of thosetaken out were sent on to Charleston, and subsequently to Florence andSalisbury. About six or seven thousand of us, as near as I remember,were brought to Savannah. .......................

We were all exceedingly anxious to know how the Atlanta campaign hadended. So far our information only comprised the facts that a sharpbattle had been fought, and the result was the complete possession of ourgreat objective point. The manner of accomplishing this glorious end,the magnitude of the engagement, the regiments, brigades and corpsparticipating, the loss on both sides, the completeness of the victories,etc., were all matters that we knew nothing of, and thirsted to learn.

The Rebel papers said as little as possible about the capture, and thefacts in that little were so largely diluted with fiction as to convey noreal information. But few new, prisoners were coming in, and none ofthese were from Sherman. However, toward the last of September, ahandful of "fresh fish" were turned inside, whom our experienced eyesinstantly told us were Western boys.

There was never any difficulty in telling, as far as he could be seen,whether a boy belonged to the East or the west. First, no one from theArmy of the Potomac was ever without his corps badge worn conspicuously;it was rare to see such a thing on one of Sherman's men. Then there wasa dressy air about the Army of the Potomac that was wholly wanting in thesoldiers serving west of the Alleghanies.

The Army, of the Potomac was always near to its base of supplies, alwayshad its stores accessible, and the care of the clothing and equipments ofthe men was an essential part of its discipline. A ragged or shabbilydressed man was a rarity. Dress coats, paper collars, fresh woolenshirts, neat-fitting pantaloons, good comfortable shoes, and trim caps orhats, with all the blazing brass of company letters an inch long,regimental number, bugle and eagle, according to the Regulations, were ascommon to Eastern boys as they were rare among the Westerners.

The latter usually wore blouses, instead of dress coats, and as a ruletheir clothing had not been renewed since the opening, of the campaign-and it showed this. Those who wore good boots or shoes generally had tosubmit to forcible exchanges by their, captors, and the same was true ofhead gear. The Rebels were badly off in regard to hats. They did nothave skill and ingenuity enough to make these out of felt or straw, andthe make-shifts they contrived of quilted calico and long-leaved pine,were ugly enough to frighten horned cattle.

I never blamed them much for wanting to get rid of these, even if theydid have to commit a sort of highway robbery upon defenseless prisonersto do so. To be a traitor in arms was bad certainly, but one neverappreciated the entire magnitude of the crime until he saw a Rebelwearing a calico or a pine-leaf hat. Then one felt as if it would be agreat mistake to ever show such a man mercy.

The Army of Northern Virginia seemed to have supplied themselves withhead-gear of Yankee manufacture of previous years, and they then quittaking the hats of their prisoners. Johnston's Army did not have suchgood luck, and had to keep plundering to the end of the war.

Another thing about the Army of the Potomac was the variety of theuniforms. There were members of Zouave regiments, wearing baggy breechesof various hues, gaiters, crimson fezes, and profusely braided jackets.I have before mentioned the queer garb of the "Lost Ducks." (Les EnfantsPerdu, Forty-eighth New York.)

One of the most striking uniforms was that of the "Fourteenth Brooklyn."They wore scarlet pantaloons, a blue jacket handsomely braided, and a redfez, with a white cloth wrapped around the head, turban-fashion.As a large number of them were captured, they formed quite a picturesquefeature of every crowd. They were generally good fellows and gallantsoldiers.

Another uniform that attracted much, though not so favorable, attentionwas that of the Third New Jersey Cavalry, or First New Jersey Hussars,as they preferred to call themselves. The designer of the uniform musthave had an interest in a curcuma plantation, or else he was a fanaticalOrangeman. Each uniform would furnish occasion enough for a dozen NewYork riots on the 12th of July. Never was such an eruption of theyellows seen outside of the jaundiced livery of some Eastern potentate.Down each leg of the pantaloons ran a stripe of yellow braid one and one-half inches wide. The jacket had enormous gilt buttons, and wasembellished with yellow braid until it was difficult to tell whether itwas blue cloth trimmed with yellow, or yellow adorned with blue. Fromthe shoulders swung a little, false hussar jacket, lined with the sameflaring yellow. The vizor-less cap was similarly warmed up with the hueof the perfected sunflower. Their saffron magnificence was like thegorgeous gold of the lilies of the field, and Solomon in all his glorycould not have beau arrayed like one of them. I hope he was not. I wantto retain my respect for him. We dubbed these daffodil cavaliers"Butterflies," and the name stuck to them like a poor relation.

Still another distinction that was always noticeable between the twoarmies was in the bodily bearing of the men. The Army of the Potomac wasdrilled more rigidly than the Western men, and had comparatively few longmarches. Its members had something of the stiffness and precision ofEnglish and German soldiery, while the Western boys had the long,"reachy" stride, and easy swing that made forty miles a day a rathercommonplace march for an infantry regiment.

This was why we knew the new prisoners to be Sherman's boys as soon asthey came inside, and we started for them to hear the news. Invitingthem over to our lean-to, we told them our anxiety for the story of thedecisive blow that gave us the Central Gate of the Confederacy, and askedthem to give it to us.

CHAPTER, LVI.

WHAT CAUSED THE FALL OF ATLANTA--A DISSERTATION UPON AN IMPORTANTPSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM--THE BATTLE OF JONESBORO--WHY IT WAS FOUGHT--HOW SHERMAN DECEIVED HOOD--A DESPERATE BAYONET CHARGE, AND THE ONLYSUCCESSFUL ONE IN THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN--A GALLANT COLONEL AND HOW HEDIED--THE HEROISM OF SOME ENLISTED MEN--GOING CALMLY INTO CERTAIN DEATH.

An intelligent, quick-eyed, sunburned boy, without an ounce of surplusflesh on face or limbs, which had been reduced to gray-hound condition bythe labors and anxieties of the months of battling between Chattanoogaand Atlanta, seemed to be the accepted talker of the crowd, since all therest looked at him, as if expecting him to answer for them. He did so:

"You want to know about how we got Atlanta at last, do you? Well, if youdon't know, I should think you would want to. If I didn't, I'd wantsomebody to tell me all about it just as soon as he could get to me, forit was one of the neatest little bits of work that 'old Billy' and hisboys ever did, and it got away with Hood so bad that he hardly knew whathurt him.

"Well, first, I'll tell you that we belong to the old Fourteenth OhioVolunteers, which, if you know anything about the Army of the Cumberland,you'll remember has just about as good a record as any that trains aroundold Pap Thomas--and he don't 'low no slouches of any kind near him,either--you can bet $500 to a cent on that, and offer to give back thecent if you win. Ours is Jim Steedman's old regiment--you've all heardof old Chickamauga Jim, who slashed his division of 7,000 fresh men intothe Rebel flank on the second day at Chickamauga, in a way that madeLongstreet wish he'd staid on the Rappahannock, and never tried to get upany little sociable with the Westerners. If I do say it myself, Ibelieve we've got as good a crowd of square, stand-up, trust'em-every-minute-in-your-life boys, as ever thawed hard-tack and sowbelly. We gotall the grunters and weak sisters fanned out the first year, and sincethen we've been on a business basis, all the time. We're in a mightygood brigade, too. Most of the regiments have been with us since weformed the first brigade Pap Thomas ever commanded, and waded with himthrough the mud of Kentucky, from Wild Cat to Mill Springs, where he gaveZollicoffer just a little the awfulest thrashing that a Rebel Generalever got. That, you know, was in January, 1862, and was the firstvictory gained by the Western Army, and our people felt so rejoiced overit that--"

"Yes, yes; we've read all about that," we broke in, "and we'd like tohear it again, some other time; but tell us now about Atlanta."

"All right. Let's see: where was I? O, yes, talking about our brigade.It is the Third Brigade, of the Third Division, of the Fourteenth Corps,and is made up of the Fourteenth Ohio, Thirty-eighth Ohio, TenthKentucky, and Seventy-fourth Indiana. Our old Colonel--George P. Este--commands it. We never liked him very well in camp, but I tell you he's awhole team in a fight, and he'd do so well there that all would take tohim again, and he'd be real popular for a while."

"Now, isn't that strange," broke in Andrews, who was given to fits ofspeculation of psychological phenomena: "None of us yearn to die, but thesurest way to gain the affection of the boys is to show zeal in leadingthem into scrapes where the chances of getting shot are the best.Courage in action, like charity, covers a multitude of sins. I haveknown it to make the most unpopular man in the battalion, the mostpopular inside of half an hour. Now, M.(addressing himself to me,) youremember Lieutenant H., of our battalion. You know he was a very fancyyoung fellow; wore as snipish' clothes as the tailor could make, had goldlace on his jacket wherever the regulations would allow it, decorated hisshoulders with the stunningest pair of shoulder knots I ever saw, and soon. Well, he did not stay with us long after we went to the front. Hewent back on a detail for a court martial, and staid a good while. Whenhe rejoined us, he was not in good odor, at all, and the boys weren't atall careful in saying unpleasant things when he could hear them, A littlewhile after he came back we made that reconnaissance up on the VirginiaRoad. We stirred up the Johnnies with our skirmish line, and while thefiring was going on in front we sat on our horses in line, waiting forthe order to move forward and engage. You know how solemn such momentsare. I looked down the line and saw Lieutenant H.at the right of Company--, in command of it. I had not seen him since hecame back, and I sung out:

"'Hello, Lieutenant, how do you feel?'

"The reply came back, promptly, and with boyish cheerfulness:

"'Bully, by ----; I'm going to lead seventy men of Company into actiontoday!'

"How his boys did cheer him. When the bugle sounded--'forward, trot,' hiscompany sailed in as if they meant it, and swept the Johnnies off inshort meter. You never heard anybody say anything against Lieutenantafter that."

"You know how it was with Captain G., of our regiment," said one of theFourteenth to another. "He was promoted from Orderly Sergeant to aSecond Lieutenant, and assigned to Company D. All the members of CompanyD went to headquarters in a body, and protested against his being put intheir company, and he was not. Well, he behaved so well at Chickamaugathat the boys saw that they had done him a great injustice, and all thosethat still lived went again to headquarters, and asked to take all backthat they had said, and to have him put into the company."

"Well, that was doing the manly thing, sure; but go on about Atlanta."

"I was telling about our brigade," resumed the narrator. "Of course, wethink our regiment's the best by long odds in the army--every fellowthinks that of his regiment--but next to it come the other regiments ofour brigade. There's not a cent of discount on any of them.

"Sherman had stretched out his right away to the south and west ofAtlanta. About the middle of August our corps, commanded by Jefferson C.Davis, was lying in works at Utoy Creek, a couple of miles from Atlanta.We could see the tall steeples and the high buildings of the City quiteplainly. Things had gone on dull and quiet like for about ten days.This was longer by a good deal than we had been at rest since we leftResaca in the Spring. We knew that something was brewing, and that itmust come to a head soon.

"I belong to Company C. Our little mess--now reduced to three by theloss of two of our best soldiers and cooks, Disbrow and Sulier, killedbehind head-logs in front of Atlanta, by sharpshooters--had one fellowthat we called 'Observer,' because he had such a faculty of picking upnews in his prowling around headquarters. He brought us in so much ofthis, and it was generally so reliable that we frequently made up hisabsence from duty by taking his place. He was never away from a fight,though. On the night of the 25th of August, 'Observer' came in with thenews that something was in the wind. Sherman was getting awful restless,and we had found out that this always meant lots of trouble to ourfriends on the other side.

"Sure enough, orders came to get ready to move, and the next night we allmoved to the right and rear, out of sight of the Johnnies. Our wellbuilt works were left in charge of Garrard's Cavalry, who concealed theirhorses in the rear, and came up and took our places. The whole armyexcept the Twentieth Corps moved quietly off, and did it so nicely thatwe were gone some time before the enemy suspected it. Then the TwentiethCorps pulled out towards the North, and fell back to the Chattahoochie,making quite a shove of retreat. The Rebels snapped up the baitgreedily. They thought the siege was being raised, and they poured overtheir works to hurry the Twentieth boys off. The Twentieth fellows letthem know that there was lots of sting in them yet, and the Johnnies werenot long in discovering that it would have been money in their pockets ifthey had let that 'moon-and-star' (that's the Twentieth's badge, youknow) crowd alone.

"But the Rebs thought the rest of us were gone for good and that Atlantawas saved. Naturally they felt mighty happy over it; and resolved tohave a big celebration--a ball, a meeting of jubilee, etc. Extra trainswere run in, with girls and women from the surrounding country, and theyjust had a high old time.

"In the meantime we were going through so many different kinds of tacticsthat it looked as if Sherman was really crazy this time, sure. Finallywe made a grand left wheel, and then went forward a long way in line ofbattle. It puzzled us a good deal, but we knew that Sherman couldn't getus into any scrape that Pap Thomas couldn't get us out of, and so it wasall right.

"Along on the evening of the 31st our right wing seemed to have runagainst a hornet's nest, and we could hear the musketry and cannon speakout real spiteful, but nothing came down our way. We had struck therailroad leading south from Atlanta to Macon, and began tearing it up.The jollity at Atlanta was stopped right in the middle by the appallingnews that the Yankees hadn't retreated worth a cent, but had broken outin a new and much worse spot than ever. Then there was no end of troubleall around, and Hood started part of his army back after us.

"Part of Hardee's and Pat Cleburne's command went into position in frontof us. We left them alone till Stanley could come up on our left, andswing around, so as to cut off their retreat, when we would bag every oneof them. But Stanley was as slow as he always was, and did not come upuntil it was too late, and the game was gone.

"The sun was just going down on the evening of the 1st of September, whenwe began to see we were in for it, sure. The Fourteenth Corps wheeledinto position near the railroad, and the sound of musketry and artillerybecame very loud and clear on our front and left. We turned a little andmarched straight toward the racket, becoming more excited every minute.We saw the Carlin's brigade of regulars, who were some distance ahead ofus, pile knapsacks, form in line, fix bayonets, and dash off witharousing cheer.

"The Rebel fire beat upon them like a Summer rain-storm, the ground shookwith the noise, and just as we reached the edge of the cotton field, wesaw the remnant of the brigade come flying back out of the awful,blasting shower of bullets. The whole slope was covered with dead andwounded."

"Yes," interrupts one of the Fourteenth; "and they made that chargeright gamely, too, I can tell you. They were good soldiers, and wellled. When we went over the works, I remember seeing the body of a littleMajor of one of the regiments lying right on the top. If he hadn't beenkilled he'd been inside in a half-a-dozen steps more. There's no mistakeabout it; those regulars will fight."

"When we saw this," resumed the narrator, "it set our fellows fairlywild; they became just crying mad; I never saw them so before. The ordercame to strip for the charge, and our knapsacks were piled in half aminute. A Lieutenant of our company, who was then on the staff of Gen.Baird, our division commander, rode slowly down the line and gave us ourinstructions to load our guns, fix bayonets, and hold fire until we wereon top of the Rebel works. Then Colonel Este sang out clear and steadyas a bugle signal:

"'Brigade, forward! Guide center! MARCH!!'

"and we started. Heavens, how they did let into us, as we came up intorange. They had ten pieces of artillery, and more men behind thebreastworks than we had in line, and the fire they poured on us wassimply withering. We walked across the hundreds of dead and dying of theregular brigade, and at every step our own men fell down among them.General Baud's horse was shot down, and the General thrown far over hishead, but he jumped up and ran alongside of us. Major Wilson, ourregimental commander, fell mortally wounded; Lieutenant Kirk was killed,and also Captain Stopfard, Adjutant General of the brigade. LieutenantsCobb and Mitchell dropped with wounds that proved fatal in a few days.Captain Ugan lost an arm, one-third of the enlisted men fell, but we wentstraight ahead, the grape and the musketry becoming worse every step,until we gained the edge of the hill, where we were checked a minute bythe brush, which the Rebels had fixed up in the shape of abattis. Justthen a terrible fire from a new direction, our left, swept down the wholelength of our line. The Colonel of the Seventeenth New York--as gallanta man as ever lived saw the new trouble, took his regiment in on the run,and relieved us of this, but he was himself mortally wounded. If ourboys were half-crazy before, they were frantic now, and as we got out ofthe entanglement of the brush, we raised a fearful yell and ran at theworks. We climbed the sides, fired right down into the defenders, andthen began with the bayonet and sword. For a few minutes it was simplyawful. On both sides men acted like infuriated devils. They dashed eachother's brains out with clubbed muskets; bayonets were driven into men'sbodies up to the muzzle of the gun; officers ran their swords throughtheir opponents, and revolvers, after being emptied into the faces of theRebels, were thrown with desperate force into the ranks. In our regimentwas a stout German butcher named Frank Fleck. He became so excited thathe threw down his sword, and rushed among the Rebels with his bare fists,knocking down a swath of them. He yelled to the first Rebel he met

"Py Gott, I've no patience mit you,' and knocked him sprawling.He caught hold of the commander of the Rebel Brigade, and snatched himback over the works by main strength. Wonderful to say, he escapedunhurt, but the boys will probably not soon let him hear the last of

"Py Gott, I've no patience mit you.'

"The Tenth Kentucky, by the queerest luck in the world, was matchedagainst the Rebel Ninth Kentucky. The commanders of the two regimentswere brothers-in-law, and the men relatives, friends, acquaintances andschoolmates. They hated each other accordingly, and the fight betweenthem was more bitter, if possible, than anywhere else on the line.The Thirty-Eighth Ohio and Seventy-fourth Indiana put in some work thatwas just magnificent. We hadn't time to look at it then, but the deadand wounded piled up after the fight told the story.

"We gradually forced our way over the works, but the Rebels were game tothe last, and we had to make them surrender almost one at a time.The artillerymen tried to fire on us when we were so close we could layour hands on the guns.

"Finally nearly all in the works surrendered, and were disarmed andmarched back. Just then an aid came dashing up with the information thatwe must turn the works, and get ready to receive Hardee, who wasadvancing to retake the position. We snatched up some shovels lyingnear, and began work. We had no time to remove the dead and dying Rebelson the works, and the dirt we threw covered them up. It proved a falsealarm. Hardee had as much as he could do to save his own hide, and theaffair ended about dark.

"When we came to count up what we had gained, we found that we hadactually taken more prisoners from behind breastworks than there were inour brigade when we started the charge. We had made the only reallysuccessful bayonet charge of the campaign. Every other time since weleft Chattanooga the party standing on the defensive had been successful.Here we had taken strong double lines, with ten guns, seven battle flags,and over two thousand prisoners. We had lost terribly--not less thanone-third of the brigade, and many of our best men. Our regiment wentinto the battle with fifteen officers; nine of these were killed orwounded, and seven of the nine lost either their limbs or lives.The Thirty-Eighth Ohio, and the other regiments of the brigade lostequally heavy. We thought Chickamauga awful, but Jonesboro discountedit."

"Do you know," said another of the Fourteenth, "I heard our Surgeontelling about how that Colonel Grower, of the Seventeenth New York,who came in so splendidly on our left, died? They say he was a WallStreet broker, before the war. He was hit shortly after he led hisregiment in, and after the fight, was carried back to the hospital.While our Surgeon was going the rounds Colonel Grower called him, andsaid quietly, 'When you get through with the men, come and see me,please.'

"The Doctor would have attended to him then, but Grower wouldn't let him.After he got through he went back to Grower, examined his wound, and toldhim that he could only live a few hours. Grower received the newstranquilly, had the Doctor write a letter to his wife, and gave him histhings to send her, and then grasping the Doctor's hand, he said:

"Doctor, I've just one more favor to ask; will you grant it?'

"The Doctor said, 'Certainly; what is it?'

"You say I can't live but a few hours?'

"Yes; that is true.'"And that I will likely be in great pain!'

"I am sorry to say so.'

"Well, then, do give me morphia enough to put me to sleep, so that I willwake up only in another world.'

"The Doctor did so; Colonel Grower thanked him; wrung his hand, bade himgood-by, and went to sleep to wake no more."

"Do you believe in presentiments and superstitions?" said another of theFourteenth. There was Fisher Pray, Orderly Sergeant of Company I. Hecame from Waterville, O., where his folks are now living. The day beforewe started out he had a presentiment that we were going into a fight, andthat he would be killed. He couldn't shake it off. He told theLieutenant, and some of the boys about it, and they tried to ridicule himout of it, but it was no good. When the sharp firing broke out in frontsome of the boys said, 'Fisher, I do believe you are right,' and henodded his head mournfully. When we were piling knapsacks for thecharge, the Lieutenant, who was a great friend of Fisher's, said:

"Fisher, you stay here and guard the knapsacks.'

"Fisher's face blazed in an instant.

"No, sir,' said he; I never shirked a fight yet, and I won't begin now.'

"So he went into the fight, and was killed, as he knew he would be. Now,that's what I call nerve."

"The same thing was true of Sergeant Arthur Tarbox, of Company A," saidthe narrator; "he had a presentiment, too; he knew he was going to bekilled, if he went in, and he was offered an honorable chance to stayout, but he would not take it, and went in and was killed."

"Well, we staid there the next day, buried our dead, took care of ourwounded, and gathered up the plunder we had taken from the Johnnies.The rest of the army went off, 'hot blocks,' after Hardee and the rest ofHood's army, which it was hoped would be caught outside of entrenchments.But Hood had too much the start, and got into the works at Lovejoy, aheadof our fellows. The night before we heard several very loud explosionsup to the north. We guessed what that meant, and so did the TwentiethCorps, who were lying back at the Chattahoochee, and the next morning theGeneral commanding--Slocum--sent out a reconnaissance. It was met by theMayor of Atlanta, who said that the Rebels had blown up their stores andretreated. The Twentieth Corps then came in and took 'possession of theCity, and the next day--the 3d--Sherman came in, and issued an orderdeclaring the campaign at an end, and that we would rest awhile andrefit.

"We laid around Atlanta a good while, and things quieted down so that itseemed almost like peace, after the four months of continual fighting wehad gone through. We had been under a strain so long that now we boyswent in the other direction, and became too careless, and that's how wegot picked up. We went out about five miles one night after a lot ofnice smoked hams that a nigger told us were stored in an old cottonpress, and which we knew would be enough sight better eating for CompanyC, than the commissary pork we had lived on so long. We found the cottonpress, and the hams, just as the nigger told us, and we hitched up a teamto take them into camp. As we hadn't seen any Johnny signs anywhere,we set our guns down to help load the meat, and just as we all camestringing out to the wagon with as much meat as we could carry, a companyof Ferguson's Cavalry popped out of the woods about one hundred yards infront of us and were on top of us before we could say I scat. You seethey'd heard of the meat, too."

CHAPTER LVII.

A FAIR SACRIFICE--THE STORY OF ONE BOY WHO WILLINGLY GAVE HIS YOUNG LIFEFOR HIS COUNTRY.

Charley Barbour was one of the truest-hearted and best-liked of myschool-boy chums and friends. For several terms we sat together on thesame uncompromisingly uncomfortable bench, worried over the same boy-maddening problems in "Ray's Arithmetic-Part III.," learned the samejargon of meaningless rules from "Greene's Grammar," pondered over"Mitchell's Geography and Atlas," and tried in vain to understand whyProvidence made the surface of one State obtrusively pink and anotherultramarine blue; trod slowly and painfully over the rugged road"Bullion" points out for beginners in Latin, and began to believe weshould hate ourselves and everybody else, if we were gotten up after themanner shown by "Cutter's Physiology." We were caught together in thesame long series of school-boy scrapes--and were usually ferruledtogether by the same strong-armed teacher. We shared nearly everything--our fun and work; enjoyment and annoyance--all were generally meted outto us together. We read from the same books the story of the wonderfulworld we were going to see in that bright future "when we were men;" wespent our Saturdays and vacations in the miniature explorations of therocky hills and caves, and dark cedar woods around our homes, to gatherocular helps to a better comprehension of that magical land which we wereconvinced began just beyond our horizon, and had in it, visible to theeye of him who traveled through its enchanted breadth, all that"Gulliver's Fables," the "Arabian Nights," and a hundred books of traveland adventure told of.

We imagined that the only dull and commonplace spot on earth was thatwhere we lived. Everywhere else life was a grand spectacular drama, fullof thrilling effects.

Brave and handsome young men were rescuing distressed damsels, beautifulas they were wealthy; bloody pirates and swarthy murderers were beingfoiled by quaint spoken backwoodsmen, who carried unerring rifles;gallant but blundering Irishmen, speaking the most delightful brogue,and making the funniest mistakes, were daily thwarting cool anddetermined villains; bold tars were encountering fearful sea perils;lionhearted adventurers were cowing and quelling whole tribes ofbarbarians; magicians were casting spells, misers hoarding gold,scientists making astonishing discoveries, poor and unknown boysachieving wealth and fame at a single bound, hidden mysteries coming tolight, and so the world was going on, making reams of history with eachdiurnal revolution, and furnishing boundless material for the mostdelightful books.

At the age of thirteen a perusal of the lives of Benjamin Franklin andHorace Greeley precipitated my determination to no longer hesitate inlaunching my small bark upon the great ocean. I ran away from home in atruly romantic way, and placed my foot on what I expected to be the firstround of the ladder of fame, by becoming "devil boy" in a printing officein a distant large City. Charley's attachment to his mother and his homewas too strong to permit him to take this step, and we parted in sorrow,mitigated on my side by roseate dreams of the future.

Six years passed. One hot August morning I met an old acquaintance atthe Creek, in Andersonville. He told me to come there the next morning,after roll-call, and he would take me to see some person who was veryanxious to meet me. I was prompt at the rendezvous, and was soon joinedby the other party. He threaded his way slowly for over half an hourthrough the closely-jumbled mass of tents and burrows, and at lengthstopped in front of a blanket-tent in the northwestern corner. Theoccupant rose and took my hand. For an instant I was puzzled; then theclear, blue eyes, and well-remembered smile recalled to me my old-timecomrade, Charley Barbour. His story was soon told. He was a Sergeant ina Western Virginia cavalry regiment--the Fourth, I think. At the timeHunter was making his retreat from the Valley of Virginia, it was decidedto mislead the enemy by sending out a courier with false dispatches to becaptured. There was a call for a volunteer for this service. Charleywas the first to offer, with that spirit of generous self-sacrifice thatwas one of his pleasantest traits when a boy. He knew what he had toexpect. Capture meant imprisonment at Andersonville; our men had now apretty clear understanding of what this was. Charley took the dispatchesand rode into the enemy's lines. He was taken, and the false informationproduced the desired effect. On his way to Andersonville he was strippedof all his clothing but his shirt and pantaloons, and turned into theStockade in this condition. When I saw him he had been in a week ormore. He told his story quietly--almost diffidently--not seeming awarethat he had done more than his simple duty. I left him with the promiseand expectation of returning the next day, but when I attempted to findhim again, I was lost in the maze of tents and burrows. I had forgottento ask the number of his detachment, and after spending several days inhunting for him, I was forced to give the search up. He knew as littleof my whereabouts, and though we were all the time within seventeenhundred feet of each other, neither we nor our common acquaintance couldever manage to meet again. This will give the reader an idea of thethrong compressed within the narrow limits of the Stockade. Afterleaving Andersonville, however, I met this man once more, and learnedfrom him that Charley had sickened and died within a month after hisentrance to prison.

So ended his day-dream of a career in the busy world.

CHAPTER LVIII.

WE LEAVE SAVANNAH--MORE HOPES OF EXCHANGE--SCENES AT DEPARTURE--"FLANKERS"--ON THE BACK TRACK TOWARD ANDERSONVILLE--ALARM THEREAT--AT THE PARTING OF TWO WAYS--WE FINALLY BRING UP AT CAMP LAWTON.

On the evening of the 11th of October there came an order for onethousand prisoners to fall in and march out, for transfer to some otherpoint.

Of course, Andrews and I "flanked" into this crowd. That was our usualway of doing. Holding that the chances were strongly in favor of everymovement of prisoners being to our lines, we never failed to be numberedin the first squad of prisoners that were sent out. The seductive mirageof "exchange" was always luring us on. It must come some time,certainly, and it would be most likely to come to those who were mostearnestly searching for it. At all events, we should leave no meansuntried to avail ourselves of whatever seeming chances there might be.There could be no other motive for this move, we argued, than exchange.The Confederacy was not likely to be at the trouble and expense ofhauling us about the country without some good reason--something betterthan a wish to make us acquainted with Southern scenery and topography.It would hardly take us away from Savannah so soon after bringing usthere for any other purpose than delivery to our people.

The Rebels encouraged this belief with direct assertions of its truth.They framed a plausible lie about there having arisen some difficultyconcerning the admission of our vessels past the harbor defenses ofSavannah, which made it necessary to take us elsewhere--probably toCharleston--for delivery to our men.

Wishes are always the most powerful allies of belief. There is littledifficulty in convincing a man of that of which he wants to be convinced.We forgot the lie told us when we were taken from Andersonville, andbelieved the one which was told us now.

Andrews and I hastily snatched our worldly possessions--our overcoat,blanket, can, spoon, chessboard and men, yelled to some of our neighborsthat they could have our hitherto much-treasured house, and running downto the gate, forced ourselves well up to the front of the crowd that wasbeing assembled to go out.

The usual scenes accompanying the departure of first squads were beingacted tumultuously. Every one in the camp wanted to be one of thesupposed-to-be-favored few, and if not selected at first, tried to "flankin"--that is, slip into the place of some one else who had had betterluck. This one naturally resisted displacement, 'vi et armis,' and thefights would become so general as to cause a resemblance to the famedFair of Donnybrook. The cry would go up:

"Look out for flankers!"

The lines of the selected would dress up compactly, and outsiders tryingto force themselves in would get mercilessly pounded.

We finally got out of the pen, and into the cars, which soon rolled awayto the westward. We were packed in too densely to be able to lie down.We could hardly sit down. Andrews and I took up our position in onecorner, piled our little treasures under us, and trying to lean againsteach other in such a way as to afford mutual support and rest, dozedfitfully through a long, weary night.

When morning came we found ourselves running northwest through a poor,pine-barren country that strongly resembled that we had traversed incoming to Savannah. The more we looked at it the more familiar itbecame, and soon there was no doubt we were going back to Andersonville.

By noon we had reached Millen--eighty miles from Savannah, and fifty-three from Augusta. It was the junction of the road leading to Macon andthat running to Augusta. We halted a little while at the "Y," and to usthe minutes were full of anxiety. If we turned off to the left we weregoing back to Andersonville. If we took the right hand road we were onthe way to Charleston or Richmond, with the chances in favor of exchange.

At length we started, and, to our joy, our engine took the right handtrack. We stopped again, after a run of five miles, in the midst of oneof the open, scattering forests of long leaved pine that I have beforedescribed. We were ordered out of the cars, and marching a few rods,came in sight of another of those hateful Stockades, which seemed to beas natural products of the Sterile sand of that dreary land as itsdesolate woods and its breed of boy murderers and gray-headed assassins.

Again our hearts sank, and death seemed more welcome than incarcerationin those gloomy wooden walls. We marched despondently up to the gates ofthe Prison, and halted while a party of Rebel clerks made a list of ournames, rank, companies, and regiments. As they were Rebels it was slowwork. Reading and writing never came by nature, as Dogberry would say,to any man fighting for Secession. As a rule, he took to them asreluctantly as if, he thought them cunning inventions of the NorthernAbolitionist to perplex and demoralize him. What a half-dozen boys takenout of our own ranks would have done with ease in an hour or so, theseRebels worried over all of the afternoon, and then their register of uswas so imperfect, badly written and misspelled, that the Yankee clerksafterwards detailed for the purpose, never could succeed in reducing itto intelligibility.

We learned that the place at which we had arrived was Camp Lawton, but wealmost always spoke of it as "Millen," the same as Camp Sumter isuniversally known as Andersonville.

Shortly after dark we were turned inside the Stockade. Being the firstthat had entered, there was quite a quantity of wood--the offal from thetimber used in constructing the Stockade--lying on the ground. The nightwas chilly one we soon had a number of fires blazing. Green pitch pine,when burned, gives off a peculiar, pungent odor, which is never forgottenby one who has once smelled it. I first became acquainted with it onentering Andersonville, and to this day it is the most powerfulremembrance I can have of the opening of that dreadful Iliad of woes.On my journey to Washington of late years the locomotives are invariablyfed with pitch pine as we near the Capital, and as the well-rememberedsmell reaches me, I grow sick at heart with the flood of saddeningrecollections indissolubly associated with it.

As our fires blazed up the clinging, penetrating fumes diffusedthemselves everywhere. The night was as cool as the one when we arrivedat Andersonville, the earth, meagerly sodded with sparse, hard, wirygrass, was the same; the same piney breezes blew in from the surroundingtrees, the same dismal owls hooted at us; the same mournful whip-poor-will lamented, God knows what, in the gathering twilight. What we bothfelt in the gloomy recesses of downcast hearts Andrews expressed as heturned to me with:

"My God, Mc, this looks like Andersonville all over again."

A cupful of corn meal was issued to each of us. I hunted up some water.Andrews made a stiff dough, and spread it about half an inch thick on theback of our chessboard. He propped this up before the fire, and when thesurface was neatly browned over, slipped it off the board and turned itover to brown the other side similarly. This done, we divided itcarefully between us, swallowed it in silence, spread our old overcoat onthe ground, tucked chess-board, can, and spoon under far enough to be outof the reach of thieves, adjusted the thin blanket so as to get the mostpossible warmth out of it, crawled in close together, and went to sleep.This, thank Heaven, we could do; we could still sleep, and Nature hadsome opportunity to repair the waste of the day. We slept, and forgotwhere we were.

CHAPTER LIX.

OUR NEW QUARTERS AT CAMP LAWTON--BUILDING A HUT--AN EXCEPTIONALCOMMANDANT--HE IS a GOOD MAN, BUT WILL TAKE BRIBES--RATIONS.

In the morning we took a survey of our new quarters, and found that wewere in a Stockade resembling very much in construction and dimensionsthat at Andersonville. The principal difference was that the uprightlogs were in their rough state, whereas they were hewed at Andersonville,and the brook running through the camp was not bordered by a swamp, buthad clean, firm banks.

Our next move was to make the best of the situation. We were dividedinto hundreds, each commanded by a Sergeant. Ten hundreds constituted adivision, the head of which was also a Sergeant. I was elected by mycomrades to the Sergeantcy of the Second Hundred of the First Division.As soon as we were assigned to our ground, we began constructing shelter.For the first and only time in my prison experience, we found a fullsupply of material for this purpose, and the use we made of it showed howinfinitely better we would have fared if in each prison the Rebels haddone even so slight a thing as to bring in a few logs from thesurrounding woods and distribute them to us. A hundred or so of thesewould probably have saved thousands of lives at Andersonville andFlorence.

A large tree lay on the ground assigned to our hundred. Andrews and Itook possession of one side of the ten feet nearest the butt. Other boysoccupied the rest in a similar manner. One of our boys had succeeded insmuggling an ax in with him, and we kept it in constant use day andnight, each group borrowing it for an hour or so at a time. It was asdull as a hoe, and we were very weak, so that it was slow work "niggeringoff"--(as the boys termed it) a cut of the log. It seemed as if beaverscould have gnawed it off easier and more quickly. We only cut an inch orso at a time, and then passed the ax to the next users. Making littlewedges with a dull knife, we drove them into the log with clubs, andsplit off long, thin strips, like the weatherboards of a house, and bythe time we had split off our share of the log in this slow and laboriousway, we had a fine lot of these strips. We were lucky enough to findfour forked sticks, of which we made the corners of our dwelling, androofed it carefully with our strips, held in place by sods torn up fromthe edge of the creek bank. The sides and ends were enclosed; wegathered enough pine tops to cover the ground to a depth of severalinches; we banked up the outside, and ditched around it, and then had themost comfortable abode we had during our prison career. It was truly ahouse builded with our own hands, for we had no tools whatever save theoccasional use of the aforementioned dull axe and equally dull knife.

The rude little hut represented as much actual hard, manual labor aswould be required to build a comfortable little cottage in the North,but we gladly performed it, as we would have done any other work tobetter our condition.

For a while wood was quite plentiful, and we had the luxury daily of warmfires, which the increasing coolness of the weather made importantaccessories to our comfort.

Other prisoners kept coming in. Those we left behind at Savannahfollowed us, and the prison there was broken up. Quite a number alsocame in from--Andersonville, so that in a little while we had between sixand seven thousand in the Stockade. The last comers found all thematerial for tents and all the fuel used up, and consequently did notfare so well as the earlier arrivals.

The commandant of the prison--one Captain Bowes--was the best of hisclass it was my fortune to meet. Compared with the senseless brutalityof Wirz, the reckless deviltry of Davis, or the stupid malignance ofBarrett, at Florence, his administration was mildness and wisdom itself.

He enforced discipline better than any of those named, but has what theyall lacked--executive ability--and he secured results that they could notpossibly attain, and without anything, like the friction that attendedtheir efforts. I do not remember that any one was shot during our sixweeks' stay at Millen--a circumstance simply remarkable, since I do notrecall a single week passed anywhere else without at least one murder bythe guards.

One instance will illustrate the difference of his administration fromthat of other prison commandants. He came upon the grounds of ourdivision one morning, accompanied by a pleasant-faced, intelligent-appearing lad of about fifteen or sixteen. He said to us:

"Gentlemen: (The only instance during our imprisonment when we receivedso polite a designation.) This is my son, who will hereafter call yourroll. He will treat you as gentlemen, and I know you will do the same tohim."

This understanding was observed to the letter on both sides. Young Bowesinvariably spoke civilly to us, and we obeyed his orders with a promptcheerfulness that left him nothing to complain of.

The only charge I have to make against Bowes is made more in detail inanother chapter, and that is, that he took money from well prisoners forgiving them the first chance to go through on the Sick Exchange.How culpable this was I must leave each reader to decide for himself.I thought it very wrong at the time, but possibly my views might havebeen colored highly by my not having any money wherewith to procure myown inclusion in the happy lot of the exchanged.

Of one thing I am certain: that his acceptance of money to bias hisofficial action was not singular on his part. I am convinced that everycommandant we had over us--except Wirz--was habitually in the receipt ofbribes from prisoners. I never heard that any one succeeded in bribingWirz, and this is the sole good thing I can say of that fellow. Againstthis it may be said, however, that he plundered the boys so effectuallyon entering the prison as to leave them little of the wherewithal tobribe anybody.

Davis was probably the most unscrupulous bribe-taker of the lot.He actually received money for permitting prisoners to escape to ourlines, and got down to as low a figure as one hundred dollars for thissort of service. I never heard that any of the other commandants wentthis far.

The rations issued to us were somewhat better than those ofAndersonville, as the meal was finer and better, though it was absurdedlyinsufficient in quantity, and we received no salt. On several occasionsfresh beef was dealt out to us, and each time the excitement createdamong those who had not tasted fresh meat for weeks and months waswonderful. On the first occasion the meat was simply the heads of thecattle killed for the use of the guards. Several wagon loads of thesewere brought in and distributed. We broke them up so that every man gota piece of the bone, which was boiled and reboiled, as long as a singlebubble of grease would rise to the surface of the water; every vestige ofmeat was gnawed and scraped from the surface and then the bone wascharred until it crumbled, when it was eaten. No one who has notexperienced it can imagine the inordinate hunger for animal food of thosewho had eaten little else than corn bread for so long. Our exhaustedbodies were perishing for lack of proper sustenance. Nature indicatedfresh beef as the best medium to repair the great damage already done,and our longing for it became beyond description.

CHAPTER LX

THE RAIDERS REAPPEAR ON THE SCENE--THE ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE THOSE WHOWERE CONCERNED IN THE EXECUTION--A COUPLE OF LIVELY FIGHTS, IN WHICH THERAIDERS ARE DEFEATED--HOLDING AN ELECTION.

Our old antagonists--the Raiders--were present in strong force in Millen.Like ourselves, they had imagined the departure from Andersonville wasfor exchange, and their relations to the Rebels were such that they wereall given a chance to go with the first squads. A number had beenallowed to go with the sailors on the Special Naval Exchange fromSavannah, in the place of sailors and marines who had died. On the wayto Charleston a fight had taken place between them and the real sailors,during which one of their number--a curly-headed Irishman named Dailey,who was in such high favor with the Rebels that he was given the place ofdriving the ration wagon that came in the North Side at Andersonville--was killed, and thrown under the wheels of the moving train, which passedover him.

After things began to settle into shape at Millen, they seemed to believethat they were in such ascendancy as to numbers and organization thatthey could put into execution their schemes of vengeance against those ofus who had been active participants in the execution of theirconfederates at Andersonville.

After some little preliminaries they settled upon Corporal "Wat" Payne,of my company, as their first victim. The reader will remember Payne asone of the two Corporals who pulled the trigger to the scaffold at thetime of the execution.

Payne was a very good man physically, and was yet in fair condition.The Raiders came up one day with their best man--Pete Donnelly--andprovoked a fight, intending, in the course of it, to kill Payne. We,who knew Payee, felt reasonably confident of his ability to handle evenso redoubtable a pugilist as Donnelly, and we gathered together a littlesquad of our friends to see fair play.

The fight began after the usual amount of bad talk on both sides, and wewere pleased to see our man slowly get the better of the New York plug-ugly. After several sharp rounds they closed, and still Payne was ahead,but in an evil moment he spied a pine knot at his feet, which he thoughthe could reach, and end the fight by cracking Donnelly's head with it.Donnelly took instant advantage of the movement to get it, threw Payneheavily, and fell upon him. His crowd rushed in to finish our man byclubbing him over the head. We sailed in to prevent this, and after arattling exchange of blows all around, succeeded in getting Payne away.

The issue of the fight seemed rather against us, however, and the Raiderswere much emboldened. Payne kept close to his crowd after that, and aswe had shown such an entire willingness to stand by him, the Raiders--with their accustomed prudence when real fighting was involved--did notattempt to molest him farther, though they talked very savagely.

A few days after this Sergeant Goody and Corporal Ned Carrigan, both ofour battalion, came in. I must ask the reader to again recall the factthat Sergeant Goody was one of the six hangmen who put the meal-sacksover the heads, and the ropes around the necks of the condemned.Corporal Carrigan was the gigantic prize fighter, who was universallyacknowledged to be the best man physically among the whole thirty-fourthousand in Andersonville. The Raiders knew that Goody had come inbefore we of his own battalion did. They resolved to kill him then andthere, and in broad daylight. He had secured in some way a shelter tent,and was inside of it fixing it up. The Raider crowd, headed by PeteDonnelly, and Dick Allen, went up to his tent and one of them called tohim:

"Sergeant, come out; I want to see you."

Goody, supposing it was one of us, came crawling out on his hands andknees. As he did so their heavy clubs crashed down upon his head.He was neither killed nor stunned, as they had reason to expect.He succeeded in rising to his feet, and breaking through the crowd ofassassins. He dashed down the side of the hill, hotly pursued by them.Coming to the Creek, he leaped it in his excitement, but his pursuerscould not, and were checked. One of our battalion boys, who saw andcomprehended the whole affair, ran over to us, shouting:

"Turn out! turn out, for God's sake! the Raiders are killing Goody!"

We snatched up our clubs and started after the Raiders, but before wecould reach them, Ned Carrigan, who also comprehended what the troublewas, had run to the side of Goody, armed with a terrible looking club.The sight of Ned, and the demonstration that he was thoroughly aroused,was enough for the Raider crew, and they abandoned the field hastily.We did not feel ourselves strong enough to follow them on to their owndung hill, and try conclusions with them, but we determined to report thematter to the Rebel Commandant, from whom we had reason to believe wecould expect assistance. We were right. He sent in a squad of guards,arrested Dick Allen, Pete Donnelly, and several other ringleaders, tookthem out and put them in the stocks in such a manner that they werecompelled to lie upon their stomachs. A shallow tin vessel containingwater was placed under their faces to furnish them drink.

They staid there a day and night, and when released, joined the RebelArmy, entering the artillery company that manned the guns in the fortcovering the prison. I used to imagine with what zeal they would send usover; a round of shell or grape if they could get anything like anexcuse.

This gave us good riddance--of our dangerous enemies, and we had littlefurther trouble with any of them.

The depression in the temperature made me very sensible of thedeficiencies in my wardrobe. Unshod feet, a shirt like a fishing net,and pantaloons as well ventilated as a paling fence might do very wellfor the broiling sun at Andersonville and Savannah, but now, with thethermometer nightly dipping a little nearer the frost line, it becameunpleasantly evident that as garments their office was purelyperfunctory; one might say ornamental simply, if he wanted to be verysarcastic. They were worn solely to afford convenient quarters formultitudes of lice, and in deference to the prejudice which has existedsince the Fall of Man against our mingling with our fellow creatures inthe attire provided us by Nature. Had I read Darwin then I should haveexpected that my long exposure to the weather would start a fine suit offur, in the effort of Nature to adapt, me to my, environment. But nomore indications of this appeared than if I had been a hairless dog ofMexico, suddenly transplanted to more northern latitudes. Providence didnot seem to be in the tempering-the-wind-to-the-shorn-lamb business, asfar as I was concerned. I still retained an almost unconquerableprejudice against stripping the dead to secure clothes, and so unlessexchange or death came speedily, I was in a bad fix.

One morning about day break, Andrews, who had started to go to anotherpart of the camp, came slipping back in a state of gleeful excitement.At first I thought he either had found a tunnel or had heard some goodnews about exchange. It was neither. He opened his jacket and handed mean infantry man's blouse, which he had found in the main street, where ithad dropped out of some fellow's bundle. We did not make any extraexertion to find the owner. Andrews was in sore need of clothes himself,but my necessities were so much greater that the generous fellow thoughtof my wants first. We examined the garment with as much interest as evera belle bestowed on a new dress from Worth's. It was in fairpreservation, but the owner had cut the buttons off to trade to theguard, doubtless for a few sticks of wood, or a spoonful of salt.We supplied the place of these with little wooden pins, and I donned thegarment as a shirt and coat and vest, too, for that matter. The bestsuit I ever put on never gave me a hundredth part the satisfaction thatthis did. Shortly after, I managed to subdue my aversion so far as totake a good shoe which a one-legged dead man had no farther use for, anda little later a comrade gave me for the other foot a boot bottom fromwhich he had cut the top to make a bucket.

...........................

The day of the Presidential election of 1864 approached. The Rebels werenaturally very much interested in the result, as they believed that theelection of McClellan meant compromise and cessation of hostilities,while the re-election of Lincoln meant prosecution of the War to thebitter end. The toadying Raiders, who were perpetually hanging aroundthe gate to get a chance to insinuate themselves into the favor of theRebel officers, persuaded them that we were all so bitterly hostile toour Government for not exchanging us that if we were allowed to vote wewould cast an overwhelming majority in favor of McClellan.

The Rebels thought that this might perhaps be used to advantage aspolitical capital for their friends in the North. They gave orders thatwe might, if we chose, hold an election on the same day of thePresidential election. They sent in some ballot boxes, and we electedJudges of the Election.

About noon of that day Captain Bowes, and a crowd of tightbooted, broad-hatted Rebel officers, strutted in with the peculiar "Ef-yer-don't-b'lieve--I'm-a-butcher-jest-smell-o'-mebutes" swagger characteristic ofthe class. They had come in to see us all voting for McClellan.Instead, they found the polls surrounded with ticket pedlers shouting:

"Walk right up here now, and get your Unconditional-Union-Abraham-Lincoln-tickets!"

"Here's your straight-haired prosecution-of-the-war ticket."

"Vote the Lincoln ticket; vote to whip the Rebels, and make peace withthem when they've laid down their arms."

"Don't vote a McClellan ticket and gratify Rebels, everywhere," etc.

The Rebel officers did not find the scene what their fancy painted it,and turning around they strutted out.

When the votes came to be counted out there were over seven thousand forLincoln, and not half that many hundred for McClellan. The latter gotvery few votes outside the Raider crowd. The same day a similar electionwas held in Florence, with like result. Of course this did not indicatethat there was any such a preponderance of Republicans among us.It meant simply that the Democratic boys, little as they might have likedLincoln, would have voted for him a hundred times rather than do anythingto please the Rebels.

I never heard that the Rebels sent the result North.

CHAPTER LXI

THE REBELS FORMALLY PROPOSE TO US TO DESERT TO THEM--CONTUMELIOUSTREATMENT OF THE PROPOSITION--THEIR RAGE--AN EXCITING TIME--AN OUTBREAKTHREATENED--DIFFICULTIES ATTENDING DESERTION TO THE REBELS.

One day in November, some little time after the occurrences narrated inthe last chapter, orders came in to make out rolls of all those who wereborn outside of the United States, and whose terms of service hadexpired.

We held a little council among ourselves as to the meaning of this, andconcluded that some partial exchange had been agreed on, and the Rebelswere going to send back the class of boys whom they thought would be ofleast value to the Government. Acting on this conclusion the greatmajority of us enrolled ourselves as foreigners, and as having served outour terms. I made out the roll of my hundred, and managed to give everyman a foreign nativity. Those whose names would bear it were assigned toEngland, Ireland, Scotland France and Germany, and the balance weredistributed through Canada and the West Indies. After finishing the rolland sending it out, I did not wonder that the Rebels believed the battlesfor the Union were fought by foreign mercenaries. The other rolls weremade out in the same way, and I do not suppose that they showed fivehundred native Americans in the Stockade.

The next day after sending out the rolls, there came an order that allthose whose names appeared thereon should fall in. We did so, promptly,and as nearly every man in camp was included, we fell in as for otherpurposes, by hundreds and thousands. We were then marched outside, andmassed around a stump on which stood a Rebel officer, evidently waitingto make us a speech. We awaited his remarks with the greatestimpatience, but He did not begin until the last division had marched outand came to a parade rest close to the stump.

It was the same old story:

"Prisoners, you can no longer have any doubt that your Government hascruelly abandoned you; it makes no efforts to release you, and refusesall our offers of exchange. We are anxious to get our men back, and havemade every effort to do so, but it refuses to meet us on any reasonablegrounds. Your Secretary of War has said that the Government can getalong very well without you, and General Halleck has said that you werenothing but a set of blackberry pickers and coffee boilers anyhow.

"You've already endured much more than it could expect of you; you servedit faithfully during the term you enlisted for, and now, when it isthrough with you, it throws you aside to starve and die. You also canhave no doubt that the Southern Confederacy is certain to succeed insecuring its independence. It will do this in a few months. It nowoffers you an opportunity to join its service, and if you serve itfaithfully to the end, you will receive the same rewards as the rest ofits soldiers. You will be taken out of here, be well clothed and fed,given a good bounty, and, at the conclusion of the War receive a landwarrant for a nice farm. If you"--

But we had heard enough. The Sergeant of our division--a man with astentorian voice sprang out and shouted:

"Attention, first Division!"

We Sergeants of hundreds repeated the command down the line. Shouted he:

"First Division, about--"

Said we:

"First Hundred, about--"

"Second Hundred, about--"

"Third Hundred, about--"

"Fourth Hundred, about--" etc., etc.

Said he:--

"FACE!!"

Ten Sergeants repeated "Face!" one after the other, and each man in thehundreds turned on his heel. Then our leader commanded--

"First Division, forward! MARCH!" and we strode back into the Stockade,followed immediately by all the other divisions, leaving the orator stillstanding on the stump.

The Rebels were furious at this curt way of replying. We had scarcelyreached our quarters when they came in with several companies, withloaded guns and fixed bayonets. They drove us out of our tents and huts,into one corner, under the pretense of hunting axes and spades, but inreality to steal our blankets, and whatever else they could find thatthey wanted, and to break down and injure our huts, many of which,costing us days of patient labor, they destroyed in pure wantonness.

We were burning with the bitterest indignation. A tall, slender mannamed Lloyd, a member of the Sixty-First Ohio--a rough, uneducatedfellow, but brim full of patriotism and manly common sense, jumped up ona stump and poured out his soul in rude but fiery eloquence: "Comrades,"he said, "do not let the blowing of these Rebel whelps discourage you;pay no attention to the lies they have told you to-day; you know wellthat our Government is too honorable and just to desert any one whoserves it; it has not deserted us; their hell-born Confederacy is notgoing to succeed. I tell you that as sure as there is a God who reignsand judges in Israel, before the Spring breezes stir the tops of theseblasted old pines their Confederacy and all the lousy graybacks whosupport it will be so deep in hell that nothing but a search warrant fromthe throne of God Almighty can ever find it again. And the glorious oldStars and Stripes--"

Here we began cheering tremendously. A Rebel Captain came running up,said to the guard, who was leaning on his gun, gazing curiously at Lloyd:

"What in ---- are you standing gaping there for? Why don't you shoot the---- ---- Yankee son---- -- - -----?" and snatching the gun away fromhim, cocked and leveled it at Lloyd, but the boys near jerked the speakerdown from the stump and saved his life.

We became fearfully, wrought up. Some of the more excitable shouted outto charge on the line of guards, snatch they guns away from them, andforce our way through the gate The shouts were taken up by others, and,as if in obedience to the suggestion, we instinctively formed in line-of-battle facing the guards. A glance down the line showed me an array ofdesperate, tensely drawn faces, such as one sees who looks a men whenthey are summoning up all their resolution for some deed of great peril.The Rebel officers hastily retreated behind the line of guards, whosefaces blanched, but they leveled the muskets and prepared to receive us.

Captain Bowes, who was overlooking the prison from an elevation outside,had, however, divined the trouble at the outset, an was preparing to meetit. The gunners, who had shotted the pieces and trained them upon uswhen we came out to listen t the speech, had again covered us with them,and were ready to sweep the prison with grape and canister at the instantof command. The long roll was summoning the infantry regiments back intoline, and some of the cooler-headed among us pointed these facts out andsucceeded in getting the line to dissolve again into groups of muttering,sullen-faced men. When this was done, the guards marched out, by acautious indirect maneuver, so as not to turn their backs to us.

It was believed that we had some among us who would like to availthemselves of the offer of the Rebels, and that they would try to informthe Rebels of their desires by going to the gate during the night andspeaking to the Officer-of-the-Guard. A squad armed themselves withclubs and laid in wait for these. They succeeded in catching several--snatching some of then back even after they had told the guard theirwishes in a tone so loud that all near could hear distinctly. TheOfficer-of-the-Guard rushed in two or three times in a vain attempt tosave the would be deserter from the cruel hands that clutched him andbore him away to where he had a lesson in loyalty impressed upon thefleshiest part of his person by a long, flexible strip of pine wielded byvery willing hands.

After this was kept up for several nights different ideas began I toprevail. It was felt that if a man wanted to join the Rebels, the bestway was to let him go and get rid of him. He was of no benefit to theGovernment, and would be of none to the Rebels. After this norestriction was put upon any one who desired to go outside and take theoath. But very few did so, however, and these were wholly confined tothe Raider crowd.

CHAPTER LXII.

SERGEANT LEROY L. KEY--HIS ADVENTURES SUBSEQUENT TO THE EXECUTIONS--HE GOES OUTSIDE AT ANDERSONVILLE ON PAROLE--LABORS IN THE COOK-HOUSE--ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE--IS RECAPTURED AND TAKEN TO MACON--ESCAPES FROM THERE,BUT IS COMPELLED TO RETURN--IS FINALLY EXCHANGED AT SAVANNAH.

Leroy L. Key, the heroic Sergeant of Company M, Sixteenth IllinoisCavalry, who organized and led the Regulators at Andersonville in theirsuccessful conflict with and defeat of the Raiders, and who presided atthe execution of the six condemned men on the 11th of July, furnishes,at the request of the author, the following story of his prison careersubsequent to that event:

On the 12th day of July, 1864, the day after the hanging of the sixRaiders, by the urgent request of my many friends (of whom you were one),I sought and obtained from Wirz a parole for myself and the six brave menwho assisted as executioners of those desperados. It seemed that youwere all fearful that we might, after what had been done, be assassinatedif we remained in the Stockade; and that we might be overpowered,perhaps, by the friends of the Raiders we had hanged, at a time possibly,when you would not be on hand to give us assistance, and thus lose ourlives for rendering the help we did in getting rid of the worstpestilence we had to contend with.

On obtaining my parole I was very careful to have it so arranged andmutually understood, between Wirz and myself, that at any time that mysquad (meaning the survivors of my comrades, with whom I was originallycaptured) was sent away from Andersonville, either to be exchanged or togo to another prison, that I should be allowed to go with them. This wasagreed to, and so written in my parole which I carried until itabsolutely wore out. I took a position in the cook-house, and the otherboys either went to work there, or at the hospital or grave-yard asoccasion required. I worked here, and did the best I could for the manystarving wretches inside, in the way of preparing their food, until theeighth day of September, at which time, if you remember, quite a trainload of men were removed, as many of us thought, for the purpose ofexchange; but, as we afterwards discovered, to be taken to anotherprison. Among the crowd so removed was my squad, or, at least, a portionof them, being my intimate mess-mates while in the Stockade. As soon asI found this to be the case I waited on Wirz at his office, and askedpermission to go with them, which he refused, stating that he wascompelled to have men at the cookhouse to cook for those in the Stockadeuntil they were all gone or exchanged. I reminded him of the conditionin my parole, but this only had the effect of making him mad, and hethreatened me with the stocks if I did not go back and resume work.I then and there made up my mind to attempt my escape, considering thatthe parole had first been broken by the man that granted it.

On inquiry after my return to the cook-house, I found four other boys whowere also planning an escape, and who were only too glad to get me tojoin them and take charge of the affair. Our plans were well laid andwell executed, as the sequel will prove, and in this particular my ownexperience in the endeavor to escape from Andersonville is not entirelydissimilar from yours, though it had different results. I very muchregret that in the attempt I lost my penciled memorandum, in which it wasmy habit to chronicle what went on around me daily, and where I had thenames of my brave comrades who made the effort to escape with me.Unfortunately, I cannot now recall to memory the name of one of them orremember to what commands they belonged.

I knew that our greatest risk was run in eluding the guards, and that inthe morning we should be compelled to cheat the blood-hounds. The firstwe managed to do very well, not without many hairbreadth escapes,however; but we did succeed in getting through both lines of guards,and found ourselves in the densest pine forest I ever saw. We traveled,as nearly as we could judge, due north all night until daylight. Fromour fatigue and bruises, and the long hours that had elapsed since 8o'clock, the time of our starting, we thought we had come not less thantwelve or fifteen miles. Imagine our surprise and mortification, then,when we could plainly hear the reveille, and almost the Sergeant's voicecalling the roll, while the answers of "Here!" were perfectly distinct.We could not possibly have been more than a mile, or a mile-and-a-half atthe farthest, from the Stockade.

Our anxiety and mortification were doubled when at the usual hour--as wesupposed--we heard the well-known and long-familiar sound of the hunter'shorn, calling his hounds to their accustomed task of making the circuitof the Stockade, for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not any"Yankee" had had the audacity to attempt an escape. The hounds,anticipating, no doubt, this usual daily work, gave forth glad barks ofjoy at being thus called forth to duty. We heard them start, as wasusual, from about the railroad depot (as we imagined), but the soundsgrowing fainter and fainter gave us a little hope that our trail had beenmissed. Only a short time, however, were we allowed this pleasantreflection, for ere long--it could not have been more than an hour--wecould plainly see that they were drawing nearer and nearer. They finallyappeared so close that I advised the boys to climb a tree or sapling inorder to keep the dogs from biting them, and to be ready to surrenderwhen the hunters came up, hoping thus to experience as little misery aspossible, and not dreaming but that we were caught. On, on came thehounds, nearer and nearer still, till we imagined that we could see theundergrowth in the forest shaking by coming in contact with their bodies.Plainer and plainer came the sound of the hunter's voice urging themforward. Our hearts were in our throats, and in the terrible excitementwe wondered if it could be possible for Providence to so arrange it thatthe dogs would pass us. This last thought, by some strange fancy, hadtaken possession of me, and I here frankly acknowledge that I believed itwould happen. Why I believed it, God only knows. My excitement was sogreat, indeed, that I almost lost sight of our danger, and felt likeshouting to the dogs myself, while I came near losing my hold on the treein which I was hidden. By chance I happened to look around at my nearestneighbor in distress. His expression was sufficient to quell anyenthusiasm I might have had, and I, too, became despondent. In a veryfew minutes our suspense was over. The dogs came within not less thanthree hundred yards of us, and we could even see one of them, God inHeaven can only imagine what great joy was then, brought to our achinghearts, for almost instantly upon coming into sight, the hounds struckoff on a different trail, and passed us. Their voices became fainter andfainter, until finally we could hear them no longer. About noon,however, they were called back and taken to camp, but until that time notone of us left our position in the trees.

When we were satisfied that we were safe for the present, we descended tothe ground to get what rest we could, in order to be prepared for thenight's march, having previously agreed to travel at night and sleep inthe day time. "Our Father, who art in Heaven," etc., were the firstwords that escaped my lips, and the first thoughts that came to my mindas I landed on terra firma. Never before, or since, had I experiencedsuch a profound reverence for Almighty God, for I firmly believe thatonly through some mighty invisible power were we at that time deliveredfrom untold tortures. Had we been found, we might have been torn andmutilated by the dogs, or, taken back to Andersonville, have suffered fordays or perhaps weeks in the stocks or chain gang, as the humor of Wirzmight have dictated at the time--either of which would have been almostcertain death.

It was very fortunate for us that before our escape from Andersonville wewere detailed at the cook-house, for by this means we were enabled tobring away enough food to live for several days without the necessity oftheft. Each one of us had our haversacks full of such small delicaciesas it was possible for us to get when we started, these consisting ofcorn bread and fat bacon--nothing less, nothing more. Yet we managed tosubsist comfortably until our fourth day out, when we happened to comeupon a sweet potato patch, the potatos in which had not been dug. In avery short space of time we were all well supplied with this article, andlived on them raw during that day and the next night.

Just at evening, in going through a field, we suddenly came across threenegro men, who at first sight of us showed signs of running, thinking, asthey told us afterward, that we were the "patrols." After explaining tothem who we were and our condition, they took us to a very quiet retreatin the woods, and two of them went off, stating that they would soon beback. In a very short time they returned laden with well cookedprovisions, which not only gave us a good supper, but supplied us for thenext day with all that we wanted. They then guided us on our way forseveral miles, and left us, after having refused compensation for whatthey had done.

We continued to travel in this way for nine long weary nights, and on themorning of the tenth day, as we were going into the woods to hide asusual, a little before daylight, we came to a small pond at which therewas a negro boy watering two mules before hitching them to a cane mill,it then being cane grinding time in Georgia. He saw us at the same timewe did him, and being frightened put whip to the animals and ran off.We tried every way to stop him, but it was no use. He had the start ofus. We were very fearful of the consequences of this mishap, but had noremedy, and being very tired, could do nothing else but go into thewoods, go to sleep and trust to luck.

The next thing I remembered was being punched in the ribs by my comradenearest to me, and aroused with the remark, "We are gone up." On openingmy eyes, I saw four men, in citizens' dress, each of whom had a shot gunready for use. We were ordered to get up. The first question asked uswas:

"Who are you."

This was spoken in so mild a tone as to lead me to believe that we mightpossibly be in the hands of gentlemen, if not indeed in those of friends.It was some time before any one answered. The boys, by their looks andthe expression of their countenances, seemed to appeal to me for a replyto get them out of their present dilemma, if possible. Before I had timeto collect my thoughts, we were startled by these words, coming from thesame man that had asked the original question:

"You had better not hesitate, for we have an idea who you are, and shouldit prove that we are correct, it will be the worse for you."

"'Who do you think we are?' I inquired."

"'Horse thieves and moss-backs,' was the reply."

I jumped at the conclusion instantly that in order to save our lives, wehad better at once own the truth. In a very few words I told them who wewere, where we were from, how long we had been on the road, etc. At thisthey withdrew a short distance from us for consultation, leaving us forthe time in terrible suspense as to what our fate might be. Soon, however, they returned and informed us that they would be compelled to takeus to the County Jail, to await further orders from the MilitaryCommander of the District. While they were talking together, I took ahasty inventory of what valuables we had on hand. I found in the crowdfour silver watches, about three hundred dollars in Confederate money,and possibly, about one hundred dollars in greenbacks. Before theirreturn, I told the boys to be sure not to refuse any request I shouldmake. Said I:

"'Gentlemen, we have here four silver watches and several hundred dollarsin Confederate money and greenbacks, all of which we now offer you, ifyou will but allow us to proceed on our journey, we taking our ownchances in the future.'"

This proposition, to my great surprise, was refused. I thought then thatpossibly I had been a little indiscreet in exposing our valuables, but inthis I was mistaken, for we had, indeed, fallen into the hands ofgentlemen, whose zeal for the Lost Cause was greater than that forobtaining worldly wealth, and who not only refused the bribe, but took usto a well-furnished and well-supplied farm house close by, gave us anexcellent breakfast, allowing us to sit at the table in a beautifuldining-room, with a lady at the head, filled our haversacks with good,wholesome food, and allowed us to keep our property, with an admonitionto be careful how we showed it again. We were then put into a wagon andtaken to Hamilton, a small town, the county seat of Hamilton County,Georgia, and placed in jail, where we remained for two days and nights--fearing, always, that the jail would be burned over our heads, as weheard frequent threats of that nature, by the mob on the streets.But the same kind Providence that had heretofore watched over us, seemednot to have deserted us in this trouble.

One of the days we were confined at this place was Sunday, and some kind-hearted lady or ladies (I only wish I knew their names, as well as thoseof the gentlemen who had us first in charge, so that I could chroniclethem with honor here) taking compassion upon our forlorn condition, sentus a splendid dinner on a very large china platter. Whether it was doneintentionally or not, we never learned, but it was a fact, however, thatthere was not a knife, fork or spoon upon the dish, and no table to setit upon. It was placed on the floor, around which we soon gathered, and,with grateful hearts, we "got away" with it all, in an incredibly shortspace of time, while many men and boys looked on, enjoying our ludicrousattitudes and manners.

From here we were taken to Columbus, Ga., and again placed in jail, andin the charge of Confederate soldiers. We could easily see that we weregradually getting into hot water again, and that, ere many days, we wouldhave to resume our old habits in prison. Our only hope now was that wewould not be returned to Andersonville, knowing well that if we got backinto the clutches of Wirz our chances for life would be slim indeed.From Columbus we were sent by rail to Macon, where we were placed in aprison somewhat similar to Andersonville, but of nothing like itspretensions to security. I soon learned that it was only used as a kindof reception place for the prisoners who were captured in small squads,and when they numbered two or three hundred, they would be shipped toAndersonville, or some other place of greater dimensions and strength.What became of the other boys who were with me, after we got to Macon,I do not know, for I lost sight of them there. The very next day afterour arrival, there were shipped to Andersonville from this prison betweentwo and three hundred men. I was called on to go with the crowd, buthaving had a sufficient experience of the hospitality of that hotel,I concluded to play "old soldier," so I became too sick to travel.In this way I escaped being sent off four different times.

Meanwhile, quite a large number of commissioned officers had been sent upfrom Charleston to be exchanged at Rough and Ready. With them were aboutforty more than the cartel called for, and they were left at Macon forten days or two weeks. Among these officers were several of myacquaintance, one being Lieut. Huntly of our regiment (I am not quitesure that I am right in the name of this officer, but I think I am),through whose influence I was allowed to go outside with them on parole.It was while enjoying this parole that I got more familiarly acquaintedwith Captain Hurtell, or Hurtrell, who was in command of the prison atMacon, and to his honor, I here assert, that he was the only gentlemanand the only officer that had the least humane feeling in his breast,who ever had charge of me while a prisoner of war after we were taken outof the hands of our original captors at Jonesville, Va.

It now became very evident that the Rebels were moving the prisoners fromAndersonville and elsewhere, so as to place them beyond the reach ofSherman and Stoneman. At my present place of confinement the fear of ourrecapture had also taken possession of the Rebel authorities, so theprisoners were sent off in much smaller squads than formerly, frequentlynot more than ten or fifteen in a gang, whereas, before, they neverthought of dispatching less than two or three hundred together.I acknowledge that I began to get very uneasy, fearful that the "oldsoldier" dodge would not be much longer successful, and I would be forcedback to my old haunts. It so happened, however, that I managed to makeit serve me, by getting detailed in the prison hospital as nurse, so thatI was enabled to play another "dodge" upon the Rebel officers. At first,when the Sergeant would come around to find out who were able to walk,with assistance, to the depot, I was shaking with a chill, which,according to my representation, had not abated in the least for severalhours. My teeth were actually chattering at the time, for I had learnedhow to make them do so. I was passed. The next day the orders forremoval were more stringent than had yet been issued, stating that allwho could stand it to be removed on stretchers must go. I concluded atonce that I was gone, so as soon as I learned how matters were, I got outfrom under my dirty blanket, stood up and found I was able to walk, to mygreat astonishment, of course. An officer came early in the morning tomuster us into ranks preparatory for removal. I fell in with the rest.We were marched out and around to the gate of the prison.

Now, it so happened that just as we neared the gate of the prison, theprisoners were being marched from the Stockade. The officer in charge ofus--we numbering possibly about ten--undertook to place us at the head ofthe column coming out, but the guard in charge of that squad refused tolet him do so. We were then ordered to stand at one side with no guardover us but the officer who had brought us from the Hospital.

Taking this in at a glance, I concluded that now was my chance to make mysecond attempt to escape. I stepped behind the gate office (a smallframe building with only one room), which was not more than six feet fromme, and as luck (or Providence) would have it, the negro man whose dutyit was, as I knew, to wait on and take care of this office, and who hadtaken quite a liking for me, was standing at the back door. I winked athim and threw him my blanket and the cup, at the same time telling him ina whisper to hide them away for me until he heard from me again. With agrin and a nod, he accepted the trust, and I started down along the wallsof the Stockade alone. In order to make this more plain, and to showwhat a risk I was running at the time, I will state that between theStockade and a brick wall, fully as high as the Stockade fence that wasparallel with it, throughout its entire length on that side, there was aspace of not more than thirty feet. On the outside of this Stockade wasa platform, built for the guards to walk on, sufficiently clear the topto allow them to look inside with ease, and on this side, on theplatform, were three guards. I had traveled about fifty feet only, fromthe gate office, when I heard the command to "Halt!" I did so, of course.

"Where are you going, you d---d Yank?" said the guard.

"Going after my clothes, that are over there in the wash," pointing to asmall cabin just beyond the Stockade, where I happened to know that theofficers had their washing done.

"Oh, yes," said he; "you are one of the Yank's that's been on, parole,are you?"

"Yes."

"Well, hurry up, or you will get left."

The other guards heard this conversation and thinking it all right I wasallowed to pass without further trouble. I went to the cabin inquestion--for I saw the last guard on the line watching me, and boldlyentered. I made a clear statement to the woman in charge of it about howI had made my escape, and asked her to secrete me in the house untilnight. I was soon convinced, however, from what she told me, as well asfrom my own knowledge of how things were managed in the Confederacy, thatit would not be right for me to stay there, for if the house was searchedand I found in it, it would be the worse for her. Therefore, not wishingto entail misery upon another, I begged her to give me something to eat,and going to the swamp near by, succeeded in getting well withoutdetection.